• 

  British Airways

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  BA/BAW

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  London Heathrow Airport, London Gatwick Airport

  Year Founded:

  1974

  Alliance:

  oneworld

  Airline Group:

  IAG

  CEO:

  Sean Doyle

  Country:

  United Kingdom

British Airways is preparing for a busy winter season, with over 120,000 flights on the schedule. This figure is excluding the 10,000 short-haul flights recently canceled by the airline to minimize disruptions. The news came just a few weeks after Heathrow Airport (LHR) decided to extend its capacity cap of 100,000 departing passengers daily.

Let’s take a closer look at this year’s winter schedule for British Airways.

British Airways winter schedule

The IATA winter season for this year runs from October 30th, 2022, to March 25th, 2023. Keeping in mind that Heathrow has only extended its capacity cap up to October 29th, BA’s move is a bit puzzling. However, it appears to be part of efforts to minimize last-minute disruptions and give affected passengers plenty of time to make alternate travel arrangements.

According to data provided by aviation analytics firm Cirium, the flag carrier has 120,637 scheduled flights, which translates to nearly 23.2 million available seats. Of these, around 78% or 94,166 are short-haul flights within the UK and Europe.

LHR is British Airways’ main hub, an obvious choice when we look at airport-wise distribution. Naturally, Heathrow bags the top spot with 47,400 departing flights, London City Airport (LCY) comes second with 6,550, while London Gatwick Airport (LGW) settles for third place with 5,501 departing flights over the winter season.

LHR - Genève Aéroport (GVA) in Geneva, Switzerland, has emerged as the largest route. Geneva is a popular destination for thrill-seeking adventurists in the winter, thanks to its favorable climate for a wide range of winter sports activities. Next on the list are other services from Heathrow to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and Berlin.

Changes to the winter schedule

Most airlines published their winter schedule in 2021 and are looking to revise it based on prevailing factors and their ability to operate flights. To that end, British Airways has canceled around 5,000 short-haul round trips from London Heathrow.

So far, the airline has reduced its total winter schedule capacity by 8%, including long-haul operations. Despite the cancelations, BA will operate around 290 roundtrip flights on average each day from LHR.

A British Airways spokesperson told Simple Flying,

“Following Heathrow's decision to extend its passenger cap we're making adjustments to our short-haul schedule for the next two months. While the vast majority of our customers will travel as planned and we're protecting key holiday destinations over half-term, we will need to make some further cancellations up to the end of October. In addition, we're giving customers travelling with us this winter notice of some adjustments to our schedule, which will include consolidating some of our short-haul flights to destinations with multiple services. We'll be offering customers affected by any of these changes an alternative flight with British Airways or another airline or the option of a refund.”

Indeed, affected passengers are likely to get the same rebooking choices BA extended to other customers so far.

Discover more of the latest aviation news with Simple Flying.

What do you make of British Airways’ current winter schedule? Are you one of the unlucky passengers to have their flight canceled? Please, share your experience in the comments.